


Shelter in the Storm

by Jaydee_Faire



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics
Genre: Animal Death, Battle wounds, Blood, Death, Fifty Years War, Gen, Gore, I swear to god it's raining in every single one of my Wiegraf fics, Mistaken Identity, Poisoning, Pre-Canon, Violence, War, i guess, magic use, outnumbered - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25414297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaydee_Faire/pseuds/Jaydee_Faire
Summary: Injured and outnumbered, Wiegraf drags a fellow soldier to safety.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	Shelter in the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Sedusa and CorpseBrigadier (again) for the beta work!

A bolt of lightning blasted everything white for an instant, leaving burning afterimages across Wiegraf’s vision and a ringing in his ears. Whether the strike had been a spell lobbed by one of the Romandan mages in the distance or a product of the storm that raged down upon them, there was no way to tell. 

It had, however, given him a glimpse of the space around him: three Northern Sky knights were to his left, their fine white capes soaked and sagging. To his right, a stocky shape that must have been Levigne--so caked with mud that he was nearly unrecognizable save for that ostentatious blade of his. Ahead was the tattered feathery mound of a dead chocobo, and just beside that, Foxe and a beardless young squire were trying to pull Foxe’s mired bird out of the mud.

Wiegraf struggled forward; the mire here was nearly knee-deep and sucked at his boots with every step. Levigne was shouting something, gesturing with his sword, but his voice was drowned out by another crack of thunder. 

Fifty yards ahead, what had probably been a moat in normal weather had burst its banks and flooded a small cobblestoned area that drained directly down toward the Northern Sky forces. It wasn’t ideal, but it was a more solid place to make an attack than where they stood now. If their information about the number of Romandans still inside the fort was correct, Wiegraf could breach the gate and take the fort even with just the score of men who had managed to cross through the mud.

There were still the mages to deal with, however: five of them spaced along the outer wall of the fort and flanked by two heavily armed knights in Romandan red. One of the mages was carrying a chemist’s bag on her hip and held a staff that crackled with electricity. Wiegraf pointed her out to Levigne and got a nod of agreement before they both surged forward, hoping to reach her before her knights realized she was in danger. 

Six steps and they had come even with Foxe and the squire. Foxe was hauling on the bird’s reins and it was straining against them, flapping its wings uselessly. The squire caught Levigne’s eye and backed away, stumbling backwards into the mud. 

Wiegraf felt the tell-tale tingle of magic around them, the air beginning to shimmer and fill with floating sparks. Wiegraf seized Levigne by his cape and dragged him out of range just as the sky lit with another bolt of lightning. Throwing up an arm to shield his eyes, Wiegraf heard only the chocobo’s shriek of terror and pain and the deafening _crack_ that shook the ground beneath them. 

He took another step, hand still fisted in Levigne’s cape. The mud took one of Wiegraf’s boots with it, water rushing into it before he could even thrust his foot back into place. He swore, trying to work it loose, and saw the red-gold reflection of flame in his sword at the same time that it hit him. His hair crackled and his clothes caught alight, only to be doused by the rain an instant later. 

That was two. They still had a chance to make it to the mages and cut them down, if the squire was still alive and if they could get Foxe away from his fucking bird--

Again, the prickle of magic made the hair on Wiegraf’s arms stand on end. He braced for an explosion of light and pain, but instead felt his stomach clench in on itself, his knees going weak. He retched into the mud, bent double, and if it hadn’t been for Levigne, the Romandan knight that had come upon them would have taken his arm off. 

Wiegraf couldn’t think of his stomach cramping or of his hands going numb. He dared not let himself be distracted by Levigne dropping his sword and collapsing to the ground, an easy target for the knight still standing over him. He could only lift his own blade, and the animal roar that tore from his throat as he cleaved it into the knight’s shoulder was echoed by the thunder overhead. 

The knight went down, blood gouting from his wound. Wiegraf stepped over him, leaving his boot behind in the mud, and reached down to try to help Levigne to his feet, though he could scarcely stay upright himself as the poison raced through his veins. The squire was suddenly at his side, taking Levigne’s other arm. The boy wore the colors of the Northern Sky as a simple bandana around his neck, his only armor homespun wool. “More soldiers behind the gate,” he panted. “I could see them. Men armed with swords, and mages in red!”

“That’s far more than we were warned of! Where is Foxe, why did you leave him?”

“Dead, ser!”

Slumped against him, Levigne groaned. Lightning flashed again-- the squire shouted “‘Ware overhead--!” and Wiegraf got a glimpse of his moon-white face in the instant before the fletching of an arrow appeared in his throat. Goggling, the squire reached up to grasp the shaft and, before Wiegraf could stop him, ripped the arrow out. His bandana bloomed red and then black and he raised his eyes to meet Wiegraf’s, uncomprehending.

Another arrow thudded into the boy’s chest, and a third whistled past them and disappeared into the mud. Wiegraf let the boy lay where he fell. No time even to pretend he’d come back for a token to send home to the squire’s family, if any were left. 

He didn’t have to look up to see the line of archers atop the wall of the fort-- it was already raining arrows, wooden shafts sprouting out of the mud like weeds. On the left, the trio of Northern Sky knights had been reduced to one, raising his shield against a group of Romandans with axes. On the right, the bodies of the two chocobo and what might have been Foxe, lying face down and unmoving. Ahead and behind, clashes of metal on metal and the crunch of sword through flesh as the fresh Romandan troops came pouring out of the gate to meet the straggling remains of the Northern Sky forces. 

“Fall back!” 

Wiegraf’s voice could barely be heard over the storm, but when he called again-- “Fall back, fall back to the ridge!”-- he began to hear his order echoed down the line. He dragged Levigne a few achingly slow steps, watched another ball of fire soar over his head, and then seized the man around the waist, heaving him onto his shoulder like a dead lamb. Levigne, somehow still alive, moaned something about his duty.

“Fuck your duty,” Wiegraf grunted, sheathing his sword and adjusting Levigne’s weight. “Just try not to die.”

He knew there must still be mages alive in the rear guard--yes, there, Beneger and Simond, the latter vainly trying to use the rain to soothe his spell-chapped hands. There were three archers with heavy bowguns as well, already firing past Wiegraf at the pursuing Romandans. Beneger lifted his hands to cast a spell, sparks crawling over his fingers and arcing up into the sky before crashing back down to the ground, scattering soldiers. Simond, palms raw and bloody, gritted his teeth around the last word of a chant and Wiegraf felt magic sweep past him, nearly taking him off of his feet. 

Something hit him hard in the back--a stone?--and Wiegraf went to his knees, one hand planted into the mud. When he stood again, something hard grated against his shoulder blade and all the breath left his body. He gasped, coughed out a caw of pain, and forced his feet to move. 

Pain jolted him with every step, made worse when Levigne suddenly stiffened, his boot kicking into Wiegraf’s ribs. Wiegraf tried to keep a grip on him, but whatever strength had enabled him to carry the man this far was quickly leaving him. 

They’d reached the bottom of the gentle slope they’d been calling a ridge: the ground was firmer here, a pebbly gravel that was the end of a rudimentary path they’d followed to find the fort in the first place. That had been when they were told there was only a handful of starving, frightened Romandans huddling in the fort and that reclaiming it would be a simple task. Wiegraf, looking doubtfully at the darkening horizon, had been assured by some nobly inbred lieutenant that they’d be safely inside the stone walls before the storm hit. 

Instead, he’d die out in the open: sick, bloody, and carrying Gragoroth fucking Levigne on his back. 

Wiegraf knelt to set the man down, enduring another stab of pain from his shoulder. Levigne was shivering, his eyes white slits in the splatter of mud across his face. He was wearing a fine mail shirt--finer than Wiegraf had thought an out-of-luck gambler and sometime poet like Levigne could afford. 

...And over that, a tunic made of better stuff than simple homespun. Torn and bloodied, it was still just possible to make out the green-and-white basilisk crest of House Beoulve. 

“Ajora’s _tits,”_ Wiegraf swore. A rough scrubbing of the man’s face revealed not Gragoroth Levigne’s chiseled features, but the young, unscarred face of some highborn lad. Not nearly old enough to be Barbaneth Beoulve, but perhaps a younger brother, or a nephew-- 

\--or a son.

He’d met that chinless idiot of a lieutenant, but _someone_ had to be in charge. Of course it would be Zalbaag Beoulve. What luck there were more of that highest bred line to throw at the enemy.

A weak groan dragged Wiegraf’s attention back to the present. Zalbaag’s breaths were coming quick and shallow, lips purpling from the effects of the poison still coursing through him. There were elixirs aplenty back at the encampment. There would be white mages there as well, waiting to tend to the wounded. They may as well have been at the bottom of the sea for all the good that did him now. 

Wiegraf took a breath, grunted it back out as pain washed over him again. He would never be able to climb the hill while dragging this poor bastard behind him.

Alone, he had a chance of making it.

There was little sense in getting killed trying to protect the body of a nobleman’s dying son. Wiegraf was no stranger to the decisions war forced on a man. He needed no other excuse, no further rationalization to soften it. He would go, and he would live.

But he hesitated, for just one moment. 

“Lord… brother.”

He should have told Zalbaag to make his peace with his gods. Instead, like a coward, Wiegraf said, “Don’t try to talk. You’ll be alright.”

Zalbaag had rallied enough to look up into Wiegraf’s face; his hand came to clutch weakly at Wiegraf’s tunic. “Lord Brother,” he said again, then, “...Dycedarg. Please… I cannot…”

A shout went up behind them, cries of “Cut them down! Give no quarter!” Too close, the gurgling gasp of someone trying to draw breath with a wound in their chest, and a butcher’s sound of blade on bone. The Romandans had already crossed through the mud, then, and were making quick work of the mages. 

“Please,” Zalbaag whispered. “I am so weary. Let me… rest.”

Wiegraf didn’t dare turn to see his death coming up behind him. “Close your eyes,” he said instead. “It’ll be over soon.”

Zalbaag’s eyes rolled up in his head again, mouth going slack. It didn’t seem right, for a noble to die as dirty and trembling as a common man would. Wasn’t it the fate of the highborn to die from an assassin’s knife, or a dramatic duel atop castle walls? Or if they fell in battle, it would be in a great surge of army against army on a bloodsoaked plain, not succumbing to common poisoning at the gates of some tiny, unimportant fort.

Goosebumps raced across Wiegraf’s skin and he reflexively threw himself atop Zalbaag’s body to shield him from the magical assault that would follow. He pressed himself close, hid his face in the crook of Zalbaag’s neck, and waited for his own common end.

There was a terrible roar, a presence of a magic so powerful that the ground shook with its passing. The air turned frigid, and he was suddenly being pelted with frozen rain: white drops drumming on the earth all around them, accompanied by the sharp crackle of ice. His breath fogged in the space between his and Zalbaag’s faces, crystallizing on Zalbaag’s fair eyelashes.

Wiegraf lifted his head. The stormy sky was full of flying snowflakes and ice crystals; the ghostly figure of a woman drifted across the frost-tipped mud, her arms outstretched. Romandans were already fleeing to the safety of the fort, but those unlucky enough to feel her touch fell where they stood, eyes frozen open and staring. 

She passed by dying Northern Sky knights without pausing, but neither did her magic harm them. The moment she set foot on the flagstones of the fort’s gate, she vanished in a flash of white, leaving a stark silence in her wake as the rain began to pour down again and the mud began to thaw.

A familiar avian bugling brought Wiegraf’s gaze to the ridge above him, which was abruptly crowded with mounted soldiers. Banners of red and white snapped in the gusting wind: the Southern Sky, led by a white-bearded man that any child nursed on the tales of epic battles and gallant knights would recognize.

The Thunder God, come in the midst of a fearsome storm. Wiegraf smiled grimly. They would have the fort after all, a victory come too late for he and Zalbaag. Still, at least his head wouldn’t end up atop a pike on a fort flying Romandan colors. He lay his forehead against Zalbaag’s chest, exhausted, the last of his strength finally leaving him. 

Far away, as he dipped down into darkness, someone shouted, “This one’s still alive!”

“...Folles, my Lord. Of Smittyton in Fovoham.”

Everything hurt.

“There’s a younger sister listed as next of kin. And a maiden aunt, it seems. But no one else.”

He could breathe, and move his fingers and toes, but that was about the end of it. He could smell lye soap and vinegar and, underlaying that, the faint stink of blood and offal that always permeates an infirmary. 

“But you say he’ll recover?”

Wiegraf’s ears perked. There was an accent he didn’t hear often in a military encampment. That is, if he weren’t dead, this wasn’t Hell, and the Devil didn’t talk like he’d had a birch switch across his knuckles every time he dropped a vowel.

“He’s lost a great deal of blood, ser. That isn’t so easily mended. He’ll need a few more days of rest at the very least, and his shoulder…”

“The arrowhead, yes. One of the Romandan’s steel broadheads, crafted with as much care and attention to detail as every other damn thing they kill our men with.” A sigh. “You’ll send for me as soon as he wakes?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

Just remaining afloat at the edge of consciousness was beginning to wear on Wiegraf. He let himself drift again, the sounds of hurrying feet and clinking bottles becoming muffled and then fading into silence. 

When he woke again, the light had changed enough that Wiegraf knew several hours had passed at least. That, and the storm had finally blown itself out. He could see a strip of deep red sky through the canvas tent’s flap, shading to indigo where night was creeping in.

There was a woman standing with her back to him: slim and straight-backed, wearing the red and white uniform of a field nurse-- someone who knew a bit of chemistry and a bit of white magic and could keep from retching when cleaning a wound or easing a man’s intestines back into his belly. They tended to be practical rather than pious and for that reason Wiegraf had always felt more at ease with them than with cold-eyed white mages who dragged exhausted men to their feet and sent them back into battle.

Wiegraf sat up, grunted when his shoulder and head protested the sudden change in position, and scratched at his hair only to find it still half-slicked to his scalp with dried mud. The nurse had turned and come to his bedside as soon as he’d begun to move; she had the expression of someone who didn’t like patients doing anything they hadn’t been ordered to do first. “Ser Folles,” she began severely, but Wiegraf put up a hand to stop her.

“Have we taken the fort?”

“I haven’t had any wounded come in since yesterday afternoon, so I suppose we must have,” the nurse replied. “Either that or we’ve been overrun by Romandans and no one’s bothered to tell me, which wouldn’t be far outside the norm--”

“My men,” Wiegraf interrupted again. “How many casualties?”

The nurse paused, as if searching for some semblance of tact. “There were quite a few wounded,” she said. “We only lost two--in the tent. But men are only brought here if it seems likely they’ll survive their injuries.”

Wiegraf thought of Foxe laying in the mud, and the young squire looking up at him with an arrow clutched in his fist. “And Lev-- L-Lord Zalbaag?”

“Already galloped off to his next conquest,” the nurse said. “He came to see you often, but there was a message this morning, apparently, and he and most of his company were gone by midday. He asked me to extend his apologies that he wasn’t able to speak with you before you woke. So. Lord Beoulve is very sorry, but _someone_ has to send soldiers to their deaths, _noblesse oblige,_ and all that.”

“I can see why they left you behind,” Wiegraf muttered.

“What was that?”

“How long am I to stay here? I have other matters to attend to as well, the least of which is finding out if there are even any men left in my company to command,” Wiegraf said, “and if orders have come for Beoulve, then those for the Dead Men will not be long behind.”

“The mages did excellent work on your arm, considering all the damage done by the arrow. It was the blood you lost that kept you down for so long.” The nurse gave him a critical look, like a farmer diagnosing a sick calf. “If you’re well enough to sit up, another day or so of rest and tonics should have you on your feet.”

Wiegraf knew he was expected to protest, to insist that he was needed in the war effort, but the prospect of rest was tempting. But, “Send someone to find Gragoroth Levigne,” he said. “I believe I have a few words for him.”

**Author's Note:**

> R.I.P. to the song "My Love Hath Gone to Limberry," I'm sorry you had to be cut from the fic. Also cut from the fic: like ninety-nine repetitions of the word "mud." There's just a lot of mud okay
> 
> If you like my work, check out my carrd to find out how to support me! jaydeefaire.carrd.co


End file.
